Bandit Gang Writ Large

How Big Was the Tax Hike for Everyone Earning a Paycheck?

"The payroll tax paid by workers increased from 4.2% to 6.2% at the start of the year. The regressive tax is paid by everybody who earns $113,700 annually or less. That means someone making the median income of about $50,000 will pay $1,000 a year more in taxes, or a little more than $19 a week. These receipts are supposed to pay for Social Security and Medicare, but they are actually spent along with all other revenues. I monitor the 260-day moving sum of withheld income and employment taxes deposited at the US Treasury. It was $1,791 billion on December 18. It jumped $25 billion to $1,816 billion on January 18. That’s a significant tax increase." Continue reading →

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FATCA Overreach Will Sabotage American Global Competitiveness

"If Congress set out right now to craft a law to sabotage the global competitiveness of the US economy, they’d have trouble coming up with better than the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The law is ostensibly aimed at combating tax evasion and requires every foreign institution in the world to act at their own tremendous expense as deputy US tax collectors. FATCA will instead turn the US into an economic pariah and Americans citizens into toxic assets. It will divert untold billions of dollars per year to pay lawyers to comply with a law optimistically expected to raise less than $800 million in tax revenues per year." Continue reading →

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Outrageous IRS FBAR Penalty: $500K Delinquency Turns Into $22M Fine

"Meet Mary Estelle Curran, age 79 and living in Florida. Lest you think Mary is some sophisticated money launderer or drug runner, she is a widow. She inherited a foreign account in a Lichtenstein Foundation from her deceased husband. While the sentencing is still several months away, the IRS penalty for her account is almost $22 million even though the unpaid tax was less than a million dollars. Why so high? The civil penalties for failing to file an FBAR are based on the size of the unreported account. Under current law, the penalty is the greater of $100,000 per year or 50% of the highest account balance for each year the account is unreported." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingOutrageous IRS FBAR Penalty: $500K Delinquency Turns Into $22M Fine

Sanders Introduces Legislation to End Offshore Tax Havens

"Vermont’s Bernie Sanders introduced legislation on Thursday to prevent U.S. corporations from sheltering income in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens. Every year, said Sanders, corporations and wealthy Americans are 'avoiding more than $100 billion in U.S. taxes by sheltering their income in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and other offshore tax havens.' Under existing law, U.S. corporations are allowed to defer or delay U.S. income taxes on overseas profits until that money is brought back into the U.S. U.S. corporations are also provided foreign tax credits to offset the amount of income taxes paid to foreign jurisdictions." Continue reading →

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Draconian Cash Controls Are Coming To France

"Ayrault trotted out his national plan, a 20-page document that outlined his all-out effort to go after any kind of behavior that could possibly deprive the government of those sorely needed euros. Stuffed into that 20-page national plan: prohibiting cash payments of over €1,000 per purchase. It’s urgent. He wants to get the process started soon so that 'a decree and legislative measures' can be finished by the end of 2013. Two crisp 500-euro bills and a single coin: voilà, an illegal transaction. But the limit would only apply to fiscal residents. Fiscal residents of a country other than France would be able to pay €10,000 in cash per purchase." Continue reading →

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Double taxation row as Brussels unveils new financial transactions tax

"The European Commission was under fire Thursday (14 February) over claims that its planned tax on financial transactions (FTT) would lead to double taxation. Unveiling the plans for an FTT backed by 11 EU countries, Taxation Commissioner Algirdas Semeta said that it was a 'fair, technically sound and legally robust tax.' The proposal puts a 0.1 percent levy on bonds and shares and 0.01 percent on derivative products. The use of an 'issuance' principle as well as 'residence' criteria means that traders operating outside the FTT-11 would also be liable to pay the tax." Continue reading →

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The Barbaric Thieves and Sexual Assailants

"Shortly after 9/11, [renowned Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman’s Steinway] was confiscated at JFK Airport when he landed in New York to give a recital at Carnegie Hall. Thinking the glue smelled funny, the TSA decided to take no chances and destroyed the instrument.' Yes. A Steinway. Which Mr. Zimerman had modified himself. It has now broken 'a rare Heinrich Knopf bow belonging to [cellist] Alban Gerhardt … In what the cellist called ‘an act of brutal and careless behaviour’, the bow stick … was snapped in two, over the bridge of the cello, by air security staff at O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, as they examined the case’s contents.'" Continue reading →

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The Barbaric Thieves and Sexual Assailants

"Shortly after 9/11, [renowned Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman’s Steinway] was confiscated at JFK Airport when he landed in New York to give a recital at Carnegie Hall. Thinking the glue smelled funny, the TSA decided to take no chances and destroyed the instrument.' Yes. A Steinway. Which Mr. Zimerman had modified himself. It has now broken 'a rare Heinrich Knopf bow belonging to [cellist] Alban Gerhardt … In what the cellist called ‘an act of brutal and careless behaviour’, the bow stick … was snapped in two, over the bridge of the cello, by air security staff at O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, as they examined the case’s contents.'" Continue reading →

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The DEA Wants to Use a $37 Pot Sale to Seize a $1.5 Million Anaheim Building

"As it happens, the building owners are the kind of clients whom defense attorneys love to represent: law-abiding citizens. Specifically, they are married, in their late middle age and from Irvine. The wife is a dentist; the husband a computer engineer who holds a government security clearance, which is why the latter asked to remain anonymous. Although he feels he has done nothing wrong, he explains, even being accused of allowing his property to be used to break the law is embarrassing to him." Continue reading →

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Christopher Dorner and the Chaos Inherent to Government

"The LAPD and surrounding police departments were out in full force, their penchant for unleashing deadly violence without warning on no more basis than a hunch on open display. In truly military fashion, police even unleashed a surveillance drone as part of the search. Understandably, many felt unsafe. And for what? While bringing Dorner in — or down — was clearly a priority, the way in which he was pursued, the pile of resources devoted to his capture, and the unprovoked violence inflicted on civilians made it clear that that priority wasn’t rooted in public safety." Continue reading →

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